Iran: Here we go again

Just back from Berlin, where I spoke at News Xchange -- the world's largest international broacast news industry event. Highlight of the event was the "Iran: Here we go again" discussion. Panelists included ABC newscaster Martha Radditch, documentary film polemicist Robert Greenwald, British broadcaster Jon Snow, Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan and Michael Ledeen from the neo-con American Enterprise Institute.

Here, indeed, we go again. Most of the panelists conformed to depressingly predictable stereotypes. Greenwald was suitably enraged by Bush's foreign policy and predictably spun Iran as Iraq 2.0. Ledeen's ahistorical outrage was reversed -- he seethed about Iran as version 2.0 of Nazi Germany. ABC's Raddatz reminded us how many times she'd been to Iraq, flicked her hair back and, surprise surprise, said nothing of any real significance about Iran. The Iranian blogger, meanwhile, had a long (and predictably selective) memory -- using the New York Times' antipathy to Mossadeq in 1953 as proof of all American media's bias against all things Iranian.

Fortunately, there was nothing stereotypical about what Jon Snow had to say. The British broadcaster made the argument that "one of the greatest responsibilities to humanity" is to report Iran accurately. That means Iran today -- not the Iran of Mossadeq nor the Shah nor Khamenei nor Khatami.  Contemporary Iran, Snow reminded us, is frustratingly complex and opaque. He stressed that we are not doing a good enough job making sense of it. One reason is because our television networks aren't investing sufficient resources in the country. We need a lot of accountable, experienced television journalists like Snow covering Iran. We need to understand the country's structures of political and economic power, its youth, the nuclear issue, the relationship between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, and the real power of the Revolutionary Guards.

Exactly. Iran isn't like Iraq in any meaningful sense. The American invasion of Iraq was and continues to be both a tragedy and farce for the Iraqi people, but this war doesn't have the utterly catastrophic global consequences of an American invasion of Iran. Jon Snow's message is correct. One of the greatest responsibilities to humanity is to educate the western public about Iran. The country is neither Iraq nor Nazi Germany nor Syria nor the Lebanon. Iran is Iran. All the major tv networks should have full time correspondents in Tehran. We need to be educated on a nightly basis about Iran. That is media's moral responsibility. Can we deliver before its too late?

 

Comments

[Mickey]

A case of pots and kettles: my guess is that you were only invited to Berlin becasue you were expected to conform to predictable stereotype. And in the YouTube session you did not disappoint.

[Kentucky_Tomahawk]

Andrew,

I noticed where DailyKos is taking you to task for some shoddy journalism on your part. Will you be commenting on this anytime soon?

I'm curious as to your response.

Best Regards,
KT

[JerryL]

I see that Kentuck Tomahawk beat me to it... but still, do you have a response to Markos Moulitsas' post about you today? His argument that you did a really poor job researching his background, calling into question your competency as a journalist, seems pretty compelling to me.
I think you owe him an apology.

[Jay Clayton]

Yes, Andrew, please let me pile on here.

"kos" has made specific allgeations. He says you baldly lied, repeatedly, about his background. It's very rich given your allegations bloggers in general, and your allegation about kos in particular, as to not being careful with the facts.

Hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes of fame.

[tacitus]

I don't think Kos accused Keen of lying. He's accusing him of being guilty of the same unprofessional and sloppy journalism Keen says Kos is an example of.

Really, in this case Kos is dead on. It would have taken all of two minutes to find out that Markos has an extensive background in journalism, either by reading his About page on Kos or by simply picking up the telephone.

Now we shall see what sort of a professional Andrew Keen really is. Will he apologize for the oversight or begin an attempt to obfuscate, downplay and/or deflect from his mistake?

[Eric Thut]

Mr. Keen:

I don't think any of us think that your misrepresentation of Markos's background, nor your lack of investigation in the journalistic background of many of hte other contributing writers on dailykos was willfully malicious, however it dose point out a serious problem with your thesis about how blogs are hurting this country.

Maybe in the past when mistakes like these by "professional journalist" never really saw the light of day we were better off in our ignorance. However for millions like myself who like the self correcting and instantaneous checking that a good blog offers, there is a reason why we go there more often for our information. Not all of it may be original, but at least it is often checked and fact based.

[Steven Jay]

Those of you who presume Keen is even remotely objective or credible here, despite "calling out" kos with a series of patent falsehoods, may I point out the fact Keen sought the "Weekly Standard" to publish his tomes? Keen sees the Weekly Standard as helping America and Daily Kos as hurting it.

Never mind the vapidity of the fact we're discussing this .... in a blog.

[Robert B.]

Nice job on pointing out all the "amateurs" out there.

[Will]

Any comments regarding Markos Moulitsas?

[Dave G]

Ahhh the joys of living in a glass house. We're still waiting for a comment about Markos Moulitsas?

[Eric Gauvin]

@ Dave G

Who do you mean by "We?"

[Hugh Gage]

Why stop at Iran?

[Ulicar]

Q: Who wrote and when "It [the press] follows all the changes of public thought, obliged to do so by the necessities of competition under pain of losing its readers. The old staid and influential organs of the past, such as the Constitutionnel, the Débats, or the Siécle, which were accepted as oracles by the preceding generation, have disappeared or have become typical modern papers, in which a maximum of news is sandwiched in between light articles, society gossip, and financial puffs."

A: Gustave Le-Bon 1896 in his book "The Crowd - A Study of the Popular Mind".

Your ideas are not fresh; they are 111 years old :) Did the press survive to become as good as you would like us to believe? Can you at least see where you got things wrong, or not yet?

Toodles!

P.S. I would strongly recommend reading "The Crowd", it will, maybe, explain to you some of problems that you are aware of, but can't really explain correctly.